


Is this real?

by wematch



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, M/M, SnowBaz, fake relationship au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-23 22:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10729002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wematch/pseuds/wematch
Summary: Simon gets the surprise of his life when his roommate, Baz, asks him to pretend to be his boyfriend. Everything is going according to plan until the line of what’s real and what isn’t starts to blur, and they both have to make a decision.





	1. We have a deal

Simon

It’s late, and I’m trying to do my homework when Baz starts staring at me from his bed. I try to ignore it, but after a full minute I look up at him.

“Look Snow…” he starts the moment our eyes meet “I need to ask you something.” The way he’s looking at me, like he’s nervous, makes me start fidgeting in my seat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this.

“I need you to date me” he says with a more determined expression now, ”I’ll give you whatever you want, money is not a problem, I’m desperate, Snow.”

I drop my pencil. Has he been smoking? ”Uh…what?” I give him a strange look. ”Are you feeling alright Baz?”

He takes a deep breath before saying, “For Crowley’s sake, I’m serious.”

He’s serious. I can see it in his face, so I start laughing because this is ridiculous. What could possibly make him ask me this? He really must be desperate.

“Stop laughing.” Baz says, looking really annoyed.

“You can’t possibly think that I’m gonna fall for that.” He’s serious, but he’s probably plotting something against me. If he just needed someone to date I know he could find someone more than happy to do it.

“Look…I have my reasons. Will you do it or not?”

“You hate me, how could anyone believe this?”

“Oh, they will, not everyone is as thick as you are. Besides, you keep crying about how broke you are, so I’m offering you a way to get money for college.”

He’s an ass, why does he always have to talk like he’s insulting me? The thing is, I do need the money. I want to go to college and share a flat with Penny, but to be able to afford it, I would need to find one, or even two, jobs.

“Say we do this…how much will you give me?”

He looks at me like we’re playing a game and he’s calculating his next move. “I’ll pay you a whole year of college.“

What he’s offering is quite a lot of money, but at the same time, he’s loaded. How desperate is he for me to accept this? “Two years of college.”

“Don’t push it, Snow.”

“Then, no. I don’t accept it” I say simply, and start to stand up.

“Wait. Sit down.” He tells me, so I sit down in my own bed, staring at him “Final offer then. I will pay your whole college if you pretend to be my boyfriend for our remaining year at Watford.”

I know that I’m about to make a deal with the devil, but this is too good to say no. “Fine, we have a deal.”

“No one, including Penny, can know that this isn’t real, got it?” He adds.

“Got it.” I tell him, and he fucking smirks, the bastard. I’m so going to regret this.


	2. Fooling everyone

Baz

Penny is staring between me and Snow, trying to figure out why the hell we’re sitting together.

She decides to sit beside him, before asking in a hushed tone, “care to tell me what’s going on? Agatha told me that this morning she saw the two of you holding hands? And, in fact, everyone has been talking about it the whole morning.”

“Uh… Penny, I’m- I’m sorry I should have told you…” Simon starts saying, clearly struggling to find a way to tell her.

I look at him, with my eyebrow raised. Think about the money Snow, come on, you already started this, don’t go back.

Snow is blushing already, just like this morning, when he held my hand the whole way down to class. As expected, everyone kept staring at us, but I couldn’t care less. Finally, I have an excuse to keep him close to me, to fucking touch him. It’s worth all the money.

“As of last night, we’re dating” I tell her. It’s too painful to see him trying to find the right thing to say. Besides, I don’t want to give him any chance to blow this thing up so soon.

Penny stares at him like she’s trying to read his mind, and Snow doesn’t say a word. He’s just letting her come to her conclusions. “Is this really real?” She finally asks.

Snow gently grabs my hand and laces our fingers. Fuck, I still can’t believe this is actually happening. I feel like I must be dreaming. “Yeah… It just, sort of happened?” He says, and gives me one of his smiles, the fucker. I just want to kiss him.

“To be fair, I always wondered if all this fighting between the two of you was something more. I guess I was right.” she tells us, like it’s not a big deal.

Aleister Crowley, Penny, his best friend, thought that this could be an actual thing? Fucking unbelievable, and stupid Snow is looking at her, like what she just said didn’t make any sense.

I squeeze his hand and he looks at me.“She knows and it’s not a big deal, you can relax now.“

I know that he was worried about her, out of everyone, her opinion is what matters most to him. When she gives him a smile before getting up to grab some food, I can see his shoulders relax.

If we can fool Penny this easily, we won’t have a problem fooling anyone else.

I still can’t believe he agreed to this, and I don’t know how long it will last, but I will make the most of it.

 


	3. How we fit together

Simon

According to Baz, all we needed to do to convince everyone was: have lunch together, hold hands, wait for each other after classes and just keep looking at each other. And everyone bought it, just like he said they would.

It’s been a few weeks since this whole fake relationship started, and It’s weird how easy it is, to have him near me all the time, always touching me in some way. Surprisingly I think Baz would be a good boyfriend, if this was real.

We often come to the library together, like today. It’s funny how Penny just bonded with him instantly, will he still be friends with her when this is all over?

Baz starts gathering his things, I know he has violin classes today. “See you later, ” he tells us, and kisses me on the neck before getting up.

From time to time he kisses my cheek, or my neck. I should probably not let him near my neck since he’s a vampire, but he never did bite me in all these years, so I don’t think he’ll do it now.

The first time he did it, I wasn’t expecting it, so I just stared at him until he rolled his eyes. I was never kissed like that, maybe it’s because he’s a boy, or because he doesn’t like me. But it always feels like it means something.

Whenever he does this sort of thing in front of Penny, it makes her happy for some reason. I want to ask her why.

“Stop looking at me like that, it’s embarrassing” I tell her instead.

“What do you mean Simon?” she whispers.

“You know what I mean.. It’s just a kiss” and it’s only on the neck, Baz hasn’t kissed me on my mouth yet, will he do it sometime? Will I let him? Will it be different than the few kisses that I shared with Agatha? Everything else feels different with Baz. I need to stop thinking about this.

“Sorry I can’t help it, I’m just happy that you finally found someone that you actually want to be with.“ she tells me, and I wonder what would she think if I tell her the truth.

It scares me out how easily me and Baz do this, how we fit together and how all of it it’s fake.

 


	4. Late night talks

Baz

When we’re in our bedroom we don’t pretend to be together, but sometimes I wish we did. That way, I could fool myself into thinking that this was real. But nothing is the same anymore, even here.

Sharing a room with the person you want most, while pretending to be his boyfriend, is torture. Every small touch feels like it’s going to turn me into ashes. And now, fucking Snow is sitting in my bed, with one of my pillows behind his back.

“I said we needed to talk after my shower, you didn’t have to wait in my bed Snow.“

He just shrugs “If I waited in my bed, I would be asleep already.”

I decide to sit next to him. “In light of something that is going to happen tomorrow, I feel the need to explain why I asked you to pretend to be my boyfriend.“

“What is going to happen tomorrow?”

“My father will be here to oversee the new school program for next year. Every year a member of the old families does it, and this year will be him.”

We’re both looking outside through the window now, looking at the night sky. “I won’t be seeing him much, but I need you to come with me when I do.”

“Oh…right” I’m not looking at him, but I can tell that he’s not comfortable with the idea.

“Snow… ” I say quietly, “ he’s the reason we made this deal, I need him to accept me for who I am…” I struggle to continue.

“A vampire?”

“No. Yes, that too. ” Snow turns to me then, but I ignore him. “I’m gay, and I’m fucking tired of him pretending that he doesn’t know, like it’s something that you can just wash away.“

He doesn’t say anything for awhile but he grabs my hand and squeezes it. It’s enough to make me relax. “I’m sorry that your father doesn’t accept you for who you are.”

I don’t know how long it’s been, but Simon falls asleep with his head on my shoulder. The last thing I want to do is move, but I need to feed, so I gently try to lay him down on the bed.

When I’m about to leave the room, he opens one eye and mumbles, “Yeah Baz… you should feed… so that you can kiss my neck, and I don’t have to worry about it, ” and gives me a sleepy smile.

I roll my eyes, “You’re an idiot, Snow,” but I can’t help but grin at him too.

 


	5. Here for you

Simon

I’m nervous, we have been sitting here since our last class, holding hands, and at any moment his father is going to leave the meeting.

It used to piss me off, whenever Baz looked so calm and relaxed in stressful situations like this, but now that we spend so much time together, I can see that it’s all fake. He’s nervous. The way he keeps glancing at the door, the way he’s holding my hand and pressing himself to my side — like I’m the one keeping him in check — are giving him away.

In the last couple of weeks I didn’t know why he wanted this, with me of all people, but I think I get it now. He doesn’t hate me, not now at least, and he isn’t plotting against me. He just wants to be able to be his own person.

He’s been a constant in my life all this time, and it’s crushing me to see Baz like this. I just want him to know that I’m here for him, so I slowly close the space between us and kiss his neck slowly, and he freezes. I‘ve never kissed Baz before, he was always the one that did it. I don’t know what I’m doing, but this feels right, so I kiss him again where his neck meets his jaw.

Baz is turning into my direction and we’re so close now. I see a fire in his eyes like I’ve never seen before “Simon…”  his lips are parted, and he’s getting closer to me. I hear a door opening when Baz finally closes the space between us, and our lips meet. This feels right, I think. But before I know what’s happening, he’s pulling away and looking at the door.

His father is walking in our direction and when he’s close enough, he says, “Basilton, what are you doing here?” and glances between us.

I can feel Baz tense. “Merely waiting for my father, nothing wrong with that, ” he says calmly.

I was so worried about his father, that I didn’t notice a woman walking right beside him. “Of course there’s nothing wrong with it,” she say, looking at him, and then reaching out to touch Baz’s arm. “How lovely you two look together, Basil.“

“Thank you” He tells her, and I can’t help but blush.

“Right, we must be going now.” Mr. Pitch tells us, without looking at Baz.

“Please come home for Christmas. Mordelia and I miss you,” his stepmother tells him before leaving too.

 

**

 

After we talked to his father, Baz went to the woods. I wanted to follow him, but I think he needed to be alone.

He came back to our room when I was already in bed, but now he’s in his bed too, and I can’t stand the silence.

“Baz?”

“Piss off, Snow.” I know he doesn’t mean it, and he sounds like he’s been crying for hours.

I want to tell him that his father is an ass, but he already knows that. Instead, I think of all the times that Baz reaches for me whenever he tries to calm down, so I get up and go to his bed. He has his back to me, so I lay next to him, like maybe this will help.

After a while he turns to me, and we stay like that, studying each other. All I can think about, is that we kissed a few hours ago. Did he mean it? Or was it only because his father was watching?

“Snow?” he whispers. He’s so close to me that I can feel him breathing on my face.

“Yeah?”

“For the holidays, I only intend to go home for a few days, the rest I’m staying here but… Can you spend Christmas with me?”

We technically have a deal, and I’m supposed to act as his boyfriend, spending Christmas together was probably included in it. But he’s asking anyway, so I don’t bring it up. “Okay.”

He starts to turn back to the wall again, but his body is so close to me now, that I want to reach for him. I do. I put my arm around him.

“You called me Simon before,” I tell him when I put my head near his neck.

“No, I didn’t.” he whispers a few moments later. I can feel his body relax against mine.

“You did.” He’s making circles in my arm now. It feels so good.

As I let sleep take over me, I think of how good it feels to have Baz falling asleep in my arms, and how I can’t stop thinking about our kiss.

 


	6. The space between us

Baz

When we arrive at my house, I’m a mess. I don’t know how this fake relationship with Snow became so real to me. In the beginning it was easy, to see the line between real and fake but now, we kissed and we cuddled. Fuck, I don’t know what to think.

We never talk about these moments that we share, we just store them away and carry on like nothing happened. Is he just playing his part, or is this real for him too? Sometimes when we’re alone and he’s looking at me, I feel like this is real. That he could actually want this. Or am I just fooling myself?

Dinner was as awkward as I anticipated, Snow kept shoving food in his mouth while Daphne made polite conversation to fill the silence.

I left Snow in my bedroom before going to hunt, but on my way down I saw light in Mordelia’s room so I came to talk to her, she tried to ask why was Snow here for Christmas, but my father looked at her and she didn’t ask again.

“You should be in bed… Father Christmas won’t come if you’re not sleeping,” I say, as I sit at the end of her bed.

“I know that, but I’m just so excited!” Her enthusiasm in contagious, and gives me strength to talk to her about this.

“Listen, about earlier… you asked Father why Simon was here, and why we were holding hands…”

“Mom told me. Simon came because he’s your boyfriend,” she says simply.

“Oh? When did she tell you that?” I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

“When she came to give me a goodnight kiss. Why isn’t father happy about it?”

“He doesn’t really like Simon.” For now is too hard to explain the real reason behind it.

“Well…I like him. He makes you smile.“

I give her a small smile.“Yeah he does. Now you should try to sleep. Good night.”

“G’night Baz,” she tells me before I leave her bedroom.

On the woods, I realize that this is all I needed to hear. Why can’t my father be like that? One day he might accept me for who I am, but I am done giving a fuck about what he thinks.

 

**

 

It’s Christmas night and as the day went by, Snow became more and more less like himself, like something happened that took away his happiness.

We’re in my bedroom now and I don’t like seeing him like this. Did my father say something? I avoided leaving him alone the whole day so it must be something else.

He’s preparing himself to sleep on my couch like he did last night, which is moronic, we already shared a bed once and it was smaller “Snow, did something happen?”

“I’m fine, just wanna go to sleep” he tells me, as he grabs one extra pillow from the bed.

“Just… wait” I say, as I grab his arm. “You don’t have to sleep on the couch, the bed is big enough for the two of us.”

Our eyes meet before he tells me. “Okay.“

I come back from my shower and all the lights are out. When I enter the bed, Snow starts to move closer. he’s so close to me, that I can feel his body heat.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“It’s stupid…”

I wait for him to continue, I know that if I give him time to organize his thoughts he’ll talk. “It’s just that, seeing you with your family, even though your father is the way he is, you have them and I don’t have anything like this… A family.” Oh, fuck. This is not what I expected to hear, what can someone say after this?

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay Baz, I’m just… being stupid.” He doesn’t sound stupid, he sounds broken.

“No you’re not, It’s okay not to feel okay Snow.” Before I can think about it, I’m pulling him towards me. He puts his head on my chest, so I put my arm around him, and I start stroking his curls away from his face.

Aleister Crowley, to have him like this, half on top of me, letting me hold him, feels so right. Even if this means nothing to him, I wouldn’t change a bloody thing.

After a while Snow starts to move, very slowly, and plants a kiss on my neck. How he figured it out that I have a thing for this I don’t know, and the last time he did this we kissed. Is he going to kiss me again?

I turn towards him and he kisses my face, so I put my other arm around him, to bring him closer, and he does. He’s closing the space between us now, so I close my eyes. The kiss feels like a question, like he isn’t sure if this is okay, so I open my mouth to him, and when he deepens the kiss, I feel like this is too much, like he’s the sun and I’m about the crash into him.

When I put my hand on his hair, to bring him closer, he starts to move away, so I frown at him, until I feel him pulling me on top of him.

Simon Snow is going to be the death of me, might as well make the most of it. So I kiss him hard while I put myself on top of him. It feels so good to have him like this, out of breath because we’re kissing. I go for his neck, and start to kiss him there, his hand is beneath my shirt, stroking my back and something like this shouldn’t feel this good, but it does.

I pin his hand to the bed, and somehow we’re lacing our fingers together, and we kiss slowly. It’s different, more meaningful than any other kiss we shared.

At this moment I almost forget that he might not mean this; that all of this might not be real.

 


	7. I’ve got you now

Simon

I wake up with Baz arm around me, and I don’t want to move. He’s still sleeping, I can hear his soft breathing, so I let myself stay like that for a while.

When he wakes up, he slowly disentangles himself from me “I’m going to hunt before we go back,” he tells me while he’s getting dressed.

I’m momentarily distracted looking at him getting dressed, that I only tell him, “okay,” right before he leaves.

I feel like I just missed my chance to talk to him about this, so I take a quick shower and decide to go after him. I can’t stand it anymore, not knowing how he really feels.

I start walking into the woods, making as much noise as I can, so that he’ll hear me.

After a few minutes he shows up. We stare a few seconds at each other, until he finally speaks. “Snow… what are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you.”

“You could have waited-”

“No, I really couldn’t,” I interrupt him, and he’s looking at me in a strange way now.

I step closer to Baz, but I can’t look up while I say it. “I can’t keep doing this Baz, this fake relationship with you…”

“I see… ” That’s all he has to say? I look up at him and he’s looking hurt. So I just grab him by the neck and kiss him one last time. He’s not kissing me back, so I pull away to look at him.

“This is why I can’t keep pretending…” I close my eyes and let go of him. “It feels too good, too real, when we’re together and it isn’t.“

Suddenly Baz is kissing me.

It’s so good.

It’s been so good every time.

And somehow we end up falling to the ground, and he’s not letting go of me. “Simon…” he tells me, between kisses. “This has been real for me too.”

I’ve got you, I think. I’ve finally got you.


End file.
